


miles from where you are / burning to the ground

by moreraventhanothers



Series: sorrows i have seen [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Dark, Dreams vs. Reality, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-The Raven King, Swearing, alternate POV, poor communication skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moreraventhanothers/pseuds/moreraventhanothers
Summary: All his old fears were rearing their ugly heads, weaving through the new ones, the nightmares.  He was left with an amalgam of awful anxiety nestled heavy in his chest.  Did Ronan really think him capable of something like this?An alternate point of view for chapter 4 ofsorrows i have seen— Adam and the hospital scene





	

**Author's Note:**

> > _Note: this wasn’t meant to stand alone (though I suppose it could be read that way), but as a sort of chapter 4.5 in[sorrows i have seen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7630888)_   
> 
> 
>   
>  Looking back at my fic, I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing without considering/understanding Adam’s mental state during the hospital chapter.
> 
> Viewed through Ronan’s lens, Adam’s remoteness comes across as cold and distant. But there’s a lot more going on behind the surface — a perspective that kept niggling at me to write it.
> 
> Anyway, that happened. Since it exists now, I may as well share it ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

“Adam.”  The rough voice scraped through the silence, scattering it.  Adam’s eyes darted upward.  Relief, warm and fluid, flooded through his veins, easing his tension and unclenching his heart.  Ronan was awake.  Ronan was alive.  Ronan was going to be okay.

Adam hadn’t killed him. 

And just like that, the apprehension yanked him back under.  He felt his face tighten.  Ronan had been utterly terrified of him the last time he’d been conscious.  Was he still?  He didn’t seem to be.  Maybe it would take time for the memories to resurface.

Adam’s gaze retreated toward Ronan’s phone.  He didn’t want to catch the precise moment Ronan’s expression morphed into fear, telegraphing his desire to be anywhere but beside Adam.  He took the opportunity to text Gansey, who’d disappeared to the cafeteria with the Lynch brothers.  The message was simple:  _he’s awake_.

That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it?  _He’s awake.  He’s awake and I don’t know what he remembers.  I don’t know what he’s_ going to _remember.  I never want to see him afraid of me again.  What if he is?_ Adam set the phone down, straightened and reluctantly looked at Ronan.  When he spoke, his voice felt small.  “How do you feel?” he inquired.  His fingers trembled.  Then the question he dreaded, “Do you remember anything?”

Adam watched as Ronan slowly blinked.  He thought about the answer for a moment before replying, “Like shit.”  A corner of Adam’s mouth twitched imperceptibly.  It was exactly the answer he should have expected.  Simple.  Ronan.  Ronan’s eyes finally slid off of him.

Attuned to him as he was, Adam could _feel_ the wave of unease sweep over him as he glanced around the room.  Trepidation hung tangible in the air.  _Here it goes._ What he’d dreaded from the moment he’d had that awful revelation in the car.  Ronan, remembering.  Adam tensed, attempting to steel himself against the bone-deep pain witnessing Ronan recoil from him would inflict.

The fear surged into his eyes, hand shooting to the bandages wrapped around his abdomen.  Adam waited, heart in his throat.  “Oh no.  Shit.”  The words weren’t quite what he’d expected.  Ronan slammed his head back against the pillow.  “Shit.  _Fuck_.  I fucked up.  God.  I didn’t mean to.”  Definitely not what he’d expected.  Was Ronan blaming _himself_?  Adam’s mouth parted, but Matthew stumbled into the room before he could decide what to say.

He quietly observed their interactions, physically aching to move nearer to Ronan.  God, he’d almost lost him.  Why was he wasting time doing anything other than holding him close?

Matthew had rushed into Ronan’s tight embrace.  That shell-shocked fright was still painted across his face.  He shivered, squeezing his brother in his arms.  _Right_ , that was why.  Gansey glanced at Adam, noticed him perched stiffly, far from Ronan.  His eyebrows furrowed with disappointment.  Matthew shuffled toward the foot of the bed, and Declan asked the question that could well end Adam’s world.

_What happened?_

He felt vaguely sick.  Adam knew.  He was distressingly sure of the last thing that had transpired, at least.  A gentle curiosity, borne of something between inquiry and self-destruction, had him interested in learning the rest.  Would Ronan say the words?  Would they gape at him with unmistakable revulsion?  His brothers would, he imagined.  Gansey…  Gansey already knew the punchline.  Adam had bit it out while he trembled, head in his hands in the surgical waiting area.  _This is my fault!_   Gansey, baffled, had tried to convince him otherwise, but all Adam had been able to hear was that Ronan’s heart had stopped again.

The litany of Ronan’s confession seeped through him.  Obscure enough that the others wouldn’t pinpoint Adam as the source of blame; precise enough that Adam realized it was worse than he’d originally suspected.

_I didn’t know it was a dream._  

_I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t._  

_…before it killed me._  

Dread punched through Adam before his brain could fully process the source of it.  Ronan hadn’t known he was dreaming.  Ronan’s dreamt Adam had intended to kill him.  Adam tracked that train of thought to its inevitable conclusion.

Did that mean Ronan thought he would hurt him?  Like _this?_   Adam was unable to deny that he’d done so before.  For shit’s sake, he had nearly strangled him.  But that… that had been under the demon’s influence.  When Adam’s hands and eyes had betrayed his control.  When Adam had been trapped inside himself, screaming, begging — _please no not Ronan please God someone stop me please don’t let me do this no no I’m begging you please._   He would never…

Misery set him afire.  All his old fears were rearing their ugly heads, weaving through the new ones, the nightmares.  He was left with an amalgam of awful anxiety nestled heavy in his chest.  Did Ronan really think him capable of something like this?

In the room, Gansey was speaking to Ronan.  In Adam’s head, his voice echoed.  _He’s not as tough as he seems.  Don’t break him, Adam._   Perhaps it wasn’t just Ronan.  Maybe everyone else could see it, too.

Was everything he touched doomed to end in wreckage?  His most profound, deeply-rooted fear surged in.  _Am I going to become my father?_   Adam’s vision whited out.

_You’re never going to escape.  Why did you ever think things could be different?_

_It’s too ingrained.  You’re not going to be any better._

_Too much monster blood._

When his eyes refocused, Ronan was staring at him expectantly.  What was he looking for?  Adam quickly rifled through the sensory input his brain had failed to process as it spun off the rails.  Something about him and Opal?

“I’ve been here the whole time,” he answered, numbly.  An odd expression crossed Ronan’s face.  Was Adam still disappointing him?  _Will I ever stop?_

“I asked Gansey and Blue to go the Barns to check on her.”  Ronan visibly relaxed.  That, at least, had been the right thing to say.  He tried to swallow all of the wrong ones.

He was drifting, unmoored.  Gansey’s soft voice padded the air.  Adam stared at nothing.  His thoughts were riptides, dragging him under, threatening to drown. 

The painful lurching in his chest still had not stopped.  Was he having a panic attack?  Could you have one without the hallmark signs?  He wasn’t hyperventilating, but his mind was certainly running out from under him in a way he wasn’t accustomed to.

“How—”  The word snagged his attention.  It was coated in the same terrible dread Adam felt sludging through his veins.  “How many times did my heart stop, exactly?”

He looked to Ronan, face blanked by despair.  “Three,” he pushed past the lump in his throat.  The sheer weight of failure threatened to overwhelm him.

Ronan kept apologizing.  Adam’s insides churned at the perversity of him thinking any of this could have been his fault.  The irrationality of a victim stealing the blame for his own.

Gansey kept trying to help — an effort nearly as pointless as Ronan’s martyrdom.  Just because Ronan didn’t recall tearing away from Adam as his life spilled through his hands didn’t mean anything was right with the world.  In a twisted way, it may have actually made it worse.  Maybe Ronan should have remembered that feral terror.  Maybe a foreboding echo of it could somehow protect him from Adam.

Gansey desperately tried to catch his attention.  Adam reluctantly looked up.  He was diligent to shove the roiling inner turmoil down deep.  The blankness of his expression was carefully constructed, meticulously composed.  Gansey clearly thought Ronan not blaming Adam was the right thing, the natural state of affairs.  The eagerness evident on his face invited agreement.  The sigh of disappointment that followed was not unexpected.  _No, you will never stop._

Adam looked away.  He still felt Gansey’s eyes flitting between him and Ronan, the same as he felt Ronan’s searing a hole through his skin.  _Stop trying to help, Gansey.  You can’t fix this.  No one can._

_No one can fix_ me _._

_This is wrong._

_All wrong._

The room was clearing out.  He would be left alone with Ronan and they would have to talk about this.  _I’ve never wanted anything less._ It was a fleeting thought, and a false one, even in that very moment.  Because there was something he wanted more than to avoid this, for it to never be discussed, for it to have never happened in the first place.

_I don’t want to hurt him._

“Shit, Parrish, cut yourself some slack.  You’re going to give yourself a damn ulcer.”

Apparently he hadn’t buried it deep enough.  Or, more likely, Ronan was just adept at unearthing every hidden crevice within him.  So why did he stay?  If he could see…  If he knew about all the awfulness pervading his very genes, why the hell did he risk himself?

“All right, Parrish, did I do something to you?”  An unpleasant sound tore past his lips.  It was fitting — an ugly sound for an ugly boy.  Ronan was taking this too far.  Implying that he was in the wrong, how could he...

“You don’t remember anything from that night?”

“I told you, I don’t remember anything after I went to sleep.  Not anything real.”   _Just because it’s in your head doesn’t mean it’s not real.  Look at you.  You almost died.  Is that not_ real _enough for you?_

“Jesus shit Parrish, just fucking tell me what I did to you.  I have no clue.  I don’t lie.  You know that.”  Yes, Ronan didn’t intend to lie, but he had to be lying to himself.  How else could he explain this?  It was wrong, disgustingly so.  It sharpened the blade of self-loathing persistently digging at his insides.

Ronan could imagine an Adam that came within an inch of murdering him.  Okay, so that wasn’t that much of a stretch.  It could have happened that fall if their friends hadn’t been there to detain Adam’s rogue hands.  Ronan could apparently also do so and not know it was a nightmare.  Fine, that was again more a reflection on Adam than anything to do with Ronan.  But this?  To think and live those things and still somehow be worried that _he did something to Adam?_

He thought the guilt might actually manage to choke him.

“It was me, wasn’t it?”  Ronan appeared caught off guard by the question.  How could it not already be at the forefront of his mind?  Or was it just that he hadn’t expected Adam to piece it together?  “It was me.  Not a demon.  Not a night horror.  _I_ did this to you.” Adam gestured at the myriad of injuries so he could not try to misunderstand.  “Didn’t I?”

Ronan looked like a damned deer caught in headlights.  “W-why would you say that?”

He couldn’t stand it anymore.  The anger lashed through him, hot and clear, seeking an outlet.  “For fuck’s sake, Ronan,” he hissed.  Why was he trying to deny this?  Did he really think Adam was that stupid?

“When you…”  Every part of him felt scalded, abraded with tension.  “It was when you woke up.  You heard my voice, and you just _bolted_ across the room.  You were so goddamn afraid.”  His voice was raising; he could hear it.  He didn’t think it would stop.  “It took me a bit to connect the dots, to recognize that it was me you were terrified of.”  _Breathe_.  “But when I saw the bruises around your neck, I think I started to realize.”  His hands clenched painfully around the chair arms.  As if that could keep them from hurting Ronan again.

“I dropped down beside you, and you actually acted like I was going to _hit_ you.”  Why did he still sound surprised?  “I was just trying to reach for your hand, and you fought me.  You fought me so damn much.”  _Because he was dying, and you were just trying to kill him faster._ His mouth contorted into a bitter twist.  Surely, soon he’d stop realizing how much worse things had been than he’d originally thought.  Eventually, he’d have to hit rock bottom.  “Though now I suppose that may have been because you were trying to hold your insides together.”

He looked at the wall.  “You were so afraid of me.”  It was so much easier than seeing the confusion and remorse written on Ronan’s face.  “It wasn’t until I completely broke down in front of you that you stopped.”  _Maybe you never should have stopped_.  “But by then… all you could do was lift your hand to my cheek for the barest second,” his breath shuddered, remembering how vulnerable Ronan had looked and how sure Adam had been that he was going to lose him.  “Whisper that you were sorry, and pass out, leaving us both in a pool of your blood.”  The clawing anguish, the inability to breathe.  “Goddamn it, _you almost died!_ ”  _Breathe._  “So don’t…  Do _not_ not-lie your way out of this to spare my damn feelings, Lynch.  I did this to you, didn’t I?”

It was Ronan’s turn to look away.  Adam could see his throat working, struggling to spit out the words.  “Not,” he started to say.  The rage snarled through him again.  _Don’t do this.  You don’t lie.  Don’t do this to me.  I know better.  I won’t let you get away with it.  Say the damn words, Ronan._ “Not at first,” he finished.  “But. Yes.”

The bubble of heat popped, the fight departing his muscles in a rush.  His breath took its leave in a lengthy, ragged expulsion.  It sounded heavy, but its loss did nothing to unburden him.  His every molecule felt overwrought.  So everything was just as he had feared.  He hadn’t had hope otherwise, not really.  He’d known, in some fashion or another, for two days.  Hearing it confirmed just somehow hurt more.  Was this the bottom?  Surely things couldn’t take a turn for much worse.  The numbness slowly engulfed him.  He barely recognized his voice when he spoke.  It wasn’t Adam Parrish saying the words, it was _defeat._   “And yet you can actually sit there and worry because you think you did something to _me_.”  He swallowed audibly.  “Unbelievable.”

“Adam,” said Ronan, incredulous reproof saturating his tone.

“What?” he barked, harsh enough that he didn’t expect a response.  He didn’t know what he was doing.  Had no illusions that he could fix this.  He could only push it away.  Indecision between merely escaping the room or finishing it, once and for all, strained against him.

“Come here.  Please.” Ronan’s voice was impossibly gentle.  Adam stared at him vacantly.  He didn’t understand.  Ronan loved him.  He _knew_ that.  Ronan didn’t have to say the words.  They were rooted in every gesture he made, every other word he spoke.  He could taste it in the air between them every time they were together.

But Ronan didn’t trust him.  He clearly didn’t believe for one second that Adam wouldn’t hurt him.  Not only did he suspect the possibility, it was a foregone conclusion.  _Adam Parrish destroys Ronan Lynch.  Really, I’m only surprised it took so long._

It wasn’t some vague, nebulous fear.  It was an inevitability.

Adam had once thought Ronan a sharp object gleefully waiting for someone to sever themselves on his edges.  That was before he had snuck past Ronan’s armor, before he had been gifted with the knowledge and intimate experience of the unexpected softness underneath.

Adam was the knife.  Ronan had peeled him open and apparently exposed not warmth, but a bevy of bladed thorns.

So yes, Ronan loved him.  He had never been one to shy away from a little danger and self-destruction, after all.

When Adam did not move, Ronan cocked an eyebrow full of expectation.  What was he supposed to do with that?  Adam relented with a sigh, dragging the chair as close to the bed as it would go.  He eyed Ronan with barely concealed desperation.  How did he expect to make this right?  Did Adam even want him to?  He felt like Ronan understood him better than anyone else in his life.  If _Ronan_ didn’t even think Adam could do this correctly — that he could ever possibly love him back…  What did they have left?  Maybe he was right before.  Maybe love was a privilege.  Maybe he still didn’t deserve it.

Ronan stretched a hand across the bed toward Adam.  A peace offering.  Another wordless expression of those three syllables that meant everything to him.

Damned Gansey’s words still ricocheted off his darkest thoughts.  _Don’t break him, Adam_.  His heart seized up.  If it was inevitable that they would end up here …

Ronan deserved light.  He needed the sun.  And here was Adam, a storm cloud positioned to wrench himself into a tornado, forever on the cusp of breaking everything around him.

… should he let him go, while he still had the chance?

It would hurt.  God, would it hurt.  Possibly longer-lived and more all-consuming than any other pain he’d felt.  But if it meant Ronan would make it out of this alive, wasn’t that worth it?  Wasn’t that worth everything?

Adam’s thoughts ground to a halt. 

Ronan’s hand was clasped in his own. 

He closed his eyes.  _You’re so selfish_.

“Hey,” Ronan’s soft voice interrupted.  His thumb traced nonsense patterns along Adam’s own with unmistakable affection.  “Don’t be like this.  There’s no reason for it.  It wasn’t you.  I know that.  None of this was remotely your fault.” 

_Of course no one blames you, it was just a dream_ , part of Adam tried to reason now that his mind had stopped racing.  It was the sensible rationale Gansey had tried to shove down his throat over the last couple of days.  He wanted to accept it.  He wanted to, but when was the last time “just a dream” had accurately applied to Ronan?  Had it ever?

“You said you didn’t know you were dreaming,” he answered hollowly.  After all, that had been the core of Adam’s descent into panic.  He was certain it still mattered how Ronan would address it.

“Yeah, well, hell was definitely on the top list of possibilities.”  Of course.  Adam exhaled.

_Just a dream_.  _Just a dream_.  But it was a “just” that had earned Ronan a hospital stay.  It had almost taken him.  And that wasn’t entirely new, was it?  Adam knew this was at least the second occasion that one of Ronan’s nightmares had left him with deep scars, both psychological and physical.  The first…  _Shit._

If Adam wasn’t to blame, then what?  No.  Adam did not want to think along those lines.  Ronan was doing so much better than last year.  He had grown so much.  He was happy.  At least, as happy as anyone could have realistically expected with all the shit that’d happened in the last few months.  He hadn’t slipped back into that reckless self-destructive carelessness he’d left behind that summer.  The last time Ronan’s nightmares had wanted him dead badly enough to bleed through to the waking world, so had Ronan.

“This…” Adam’s hand tightened around Ronan’s.  He swallowed, forced himself to continue.  “I thought you were done with the self-hatred bullshit after Kavinsky and the night horrors.”  _Get angry.  Fight me.  Tell me you know this wasn’t your fault.  Tell me you aren’t going through this again._

A shudder rocked through Ronan, and Adam had the strange sense it was at the mention of Kavinsky’s name.  Maybe not.  Perhaps he had simply remembered something else from the dream.  His lips turned up in a dangerous smile.  Adam’s heart pounded heedlessly.  _Come on, Ronan._   “Turns out when you have an entire cast of nightmares reminding you of everything that has and could still go wrong, that changes.”

Adam’s brow furrowed.  No flat denial, then.  But the terse explanation made it sound as if any of those feelings had been dredged up by the nightmare itself, not the other way around.  That was better than the alternative, but it left him wondering.  What else had happened?  The way he’d phrased it, it didn’t sound like only Adam had played a role.  “Tell me about it?”

“Not right now, Parrish.  That hell is still a little too fresh.”  There was more to it, Adam could sense it.  He could hear the tremor in Ronan’s voice.  The makings of a near lie.  But he knew this wasn’t the time to push him.  Ronan was telling at least a half-truth.  He needed space to deal with it himself first.

“Some time, though?”

“Sure,” he breathed.

It wasn’t everything.  But for now, with Ronan alive and in mostly one piece beside him, hand in hand, it was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Any comments on anything I’ve written are highly appreciated.
> 
> Titles/Lyrics from: Snow Patrol and Grayshot.


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